Sunrise
by Sylvera
Summary: Follow-up to Sunset. Kairi and Namine go to visit Sora, and Roxas and Namine get a chance to see each other again. One-shot, Namine POV. Hints of RoxasxNamine and SoraxKairi. OLD FIC.


_He asked to see me? _I ask Kairi, excited.

_He did, _she says. _At least, that's what Sora said._

Kairi walks along the sidewalk, on her way to Sora's house. He gave her a call the other day, saying it'd been a while since they'd gotten together. Not only that, but Roxas wanted to see me.

We hadn't really had much time together, since…well, since that time near the end of that last journey. Since then, which was only a week or two ago, we've only seen each other for very short periods of time. I guess that was starting to bother him. He likes me, I know that. I knew from the moment he first saw me. I'm beginning to like him as well, and I've been waiting for a chance to see him again. It makes sense, though. Sora and Kairi love each other as well. And since we're reflections of them, of course we'd feel the same way, given the chance.

Suddenly, Kairi pulls me out of my thoughts. _Namine, we're here._

I look through her eyes at the house in front of us. It's a small, plain white house. Kind of boring. It wouldn't need to be very big, though. Sora and his parents are the only ones living here, after all.

Kairi walks up to the door and rings the bell. In a moment, Sora's mother answers the door. That is, I think she's his mother, but I can't remember exactly. I ask Kairi, and she confirms it.

She's very thin, looks relatively young, and has long, messy brown hair. She's wearing jeans and a sand-colored T-shirt, a very plain, casual outfit. "Oh, hi Kairi. I was getting worried that you might not come. Decided to take your time, did you?" she says.

Kairi smiles. "Hey. It took me longer than usual to get here. I had a lot on my mind."

"Oh, that's all right. You got here, didn't you? Sora's in his room. He's been waiting for you," his mom says.

Kairi runs down the hall, and opens the door to one of the rooms. It's clear that she knows her way around here. After all, I'm sure she's been here many times.

Sora is sitting on his bed, looking out the window. "Hey, it's me," says Kairi.

He turns around and sees her. He gets up and walks over to us, looking very happy. After all, the two of them have only seen each other at school for the past week or two that they've been home.

He grins. "Hey."

Kairi puts her hands on her hips. "Why didn't you come to the door when I got here?" she asks, sounding annoyed but not really that upset. "Usually, you come running to the door the instant someone gets here."

"Actually, I was just lost in thought," he says, sounding embarrassed.

All of a sudden, Roxas appears next to him, looking exactly the same as he did when I last saw him. As always, he's transparent, as if he were a ghost. That's how we appear when we separate ourselves from them. "You were thinking, huh? That's unusual," he teases.

I follow suit, and separate myself from Kairi. I appear next to her, laughing. Sora, however, is not amused. "Hey!" he cries, looking angry. Although I don't think it actually bothers him much. From what I understand, he and his friends make jokes like that all the time.

Kairi smiles and looks at me. "Why don't the two of you have some time to yourselves? Sora and I can go do something else."

"Sure," I answer.

The two of them leave the room, leaving the door open so that nothing appears unusual if we leave. If we don't want someone to see us, they don't, but it'd still appear strange if Sora's mom happened to walk by while we opened the door, and she didn't see anyone in the room.

I sit down on the bed, next to Roxas. "Good to see you again," I say.

"You too," he says back, looking out the window.

I pause. "What're you looking at?"

He looks back at me. "Nothing, just taking a look outside. This is a nice place, don't you think?"

"You mean this world? It's beautiful. I love it."

"Yeah." He looks out the window again. "But I'm not used to it being so bright."

I look at him, confused. "What do you mean? Haven't you seen sunlight before?"

"Well, think about it. Think about where I've lived. There was the World that Never Was, and…does Twilight Town count? I mean it wasn't real…but that's not the point. What I'm trying to say is that it wasn't very sunny in either of those places."

I'd barely seen sunlight at all before Kairi and I came back here. I'd always been inside. I'd never really spent much time outside at all. "At least you didn't spend most of your short life indoors," I remind him.

He looks at me, confused, then realizes what I meant. "Oh. Right."

He waits for a moment, then speaks again. "Have you ever had a friend in your life?" he asks, sounding upset.

I try to remember, but I can't think of any one besides Kairi, Sora, Roxas, and Riku, sort of, that ever really thought anything of me. "Not until recently. To the Organization, I was just a tool. And Di – I mean, Ansem…he didn't care about me at all. I mean, you didn't mean much to him either, but at least he planned to let you live. He was going to kill me, did you know that? Once I'd finished doing what he wanted, he was just going to get rid of me. Sora cared about me, back in Castle Oblivion, but only because I made him care. Riku saved me instead of killing me, but only because I'd helped him in the past. I think you were the first person who really cared about me without my influence. Once I found Kairi, and helped her escape from the Organization, she was my first real friend. We got along just fine, and when I told her what we'd have to do, that we'd have to become one, she was OK with that. Now, the only friends I really have are you and her.

Roxas thought for a moment. "I guess I've had a pretty good life compared to you. The Organization treated me well, certainly better than they treated you. I didn't even know you existed until the plan that all of them had was revealed, after it was over. I didn't have many friends there, my only real friend was Axel. But most of them were pretty nice to me, provided I did what they wanted. Some of them were sort of like friends. Then there was Twilight Town. I still wish I'd actually known the people that were my friends there. I wonder if they're any different in reality than they were there.

We're both silent for a while. "Do you consider Sora a friend?" I ask.

"Of course! Besides you, he's the only person I have left. I'm stuck with him for the rest of our life. Sure he's my friend," he says.

That wasn't the answer I was looking for. "Sure, but how well do you two get along?"

He thinks for a while. "Pretty well. Once we got back here, we were mostly trying to figure out how to communicate. It took us a few days, but we learned how. After that, we were kind of uncomfortable. We were both getting used to the idea of sharing the same body and heart. By now, we've mostly gotten used to each other. We get along alright. But…"

I'm curious now. "But what?"

Roxas sighs. "I think I make him nervous. I think he's…well, not scared of me exactly, but there's something about me that bothers him. He never told me that, but I can feel it. He wants to accept me fully, he really does, but there's something about me that makes him uncomfortable."

This surprises me. Sora doesn't seem the type to be wary of someone for no reason. He always seemed so kind and accepting. But nobody's perfect, and I suppose it makes sense. I'm sure it would be a shock to find out that someone you'd never met had been living inside you. But I would've thought the initial shock would've worn off by now.

I can't relate, however. By now, Kairi and I are like sisters. We talk a lot, laugh a lot, and are most definitely friends. "Oh," is all I say.

"I mean, I can tell he's a good person, but it's like there's a wall between us that we haven't finished breaking down," he continues.

"You're right. He is a good person. He's very kind, and caring, and forgiving. I'm sure he'd understand if you told him about this," I suggest.

"Yeah, but I don't know if I'm ready to tell him that. I'm worried about what he'd think."

I look at him. "If you don't tell him, who will? You two will never really be happy unless you can get along. After all, you'll be together forever, so you ought to try and work everything out."

He just sits there for a moment. "We'll be together…forever," he mutters, as if he's realizing for the first time what those words really mean. He looks down, and all of a sudden he punches the bed, an expression of pain on his face. "Are you OK?" I ask, worried.

"No," he says coldly. "This is all that's left for me, isn't it? I get a heart, but I'll never really be myself again. I'll never have my own body again. I'll never be warm or cold, feel the wind or the sun, except through him. I'll never eat or drink, or sleep in my own bed. I'll never sit on the clocktower with a friend ever again. In fact, I won't even have my own friends. I don't even have a family. I'll never have my own life. I'll just be living his."

He looks at me, tears in his eyes. "Namine, how can this be all we get? It's not fair! Every day, I wish there was another way. Sometimes I'm OK with the whole idea, but other times…it hurts."

I realize that I'm crying too. I don't know what to do, so I just reach out and hug him. We just sit there, arms around each other, for what feels like forever. Then we let go. "At least I have you," he says, smiling sadly.

I smile back. "True. And at least we won't end up like the rest of them. We'll never just fade away. We may be stuck somewhere between being humans and Nobodies, but at least we got a chance to really exist."

He thinks about that for a moment. "But what'll happen to us when Sora and Kairi…well, when they die? That's been bothering me for a while."

I shrug. "Who knows? But I think that if there is a next life, we'll go there with them."

"I hope so," he says.

We're both quiet for a while. "At least we'll never be lonely," I remind him. "We'll always have someone to talk to."

"Sometimes I like being alone," he says.

"If you ever just want to be by yourself, just say so. Tell Sora not to talk to you, and just disconnect. Go back to your little place in his heart, and just stay there. That's what I do."

"I guest that'd work."

I decide to change the subject again. "Do you miss you friends?"

He groans. "Namine, do we have to keep talking about all these depressing things? I'm just starting to feel better!"

I look at him. "Please, just answer this."

He leans back against the wall. "I do. When everything came back to me – I mean, at this one point, I remembered everything I'd forgotten about the Organization and myself – I realized that the normal life I was living was a lie. None of it was real. I thought the friends I had in Twilight Town were real, but they weren't. Nothing there was real. Just me. Anyway, I never knew them. They exist, but the versions of them I knew didn't. That hurt."

I sigh. "They thought it would be too dangerous to keep you in the real Twilight Town, so they made a fake one for you instead," I say softly.

"Figures," he mutters.

He looks down. "Speaking of friends…"

I know what's coming. "What?"

"Well, did I ever tell you how Axel died?"

I'm curious again. "No, you didn't. How?"

"He…Sora met up with him on his way to the World that Never Was. Sora was stopped by a bunch of Dusks. Then Axel showed up and…well, I'm not exactly sure why, but he started helping him. But there were too many of them. So Axel…" Roxas pauses, looking upset. "He did this huge fire attack, and it got rid of them all. But he'd put so much energy into that last attack that it ended up killing him. When he was dying, Sora asked him why he'd helped him."

He paused again, looking like he was in pain. "What did he say," I asked.

"He said that he'd done it all to see me."

"Really?"

"Really. He said that I made him feel like he had a heart."

For a Nobody, that's just about the nicest compliment you can get…or give. "What next?" I asked.

"I wanted to let him see me, so that he could get his wish. But I hadn't figured out how to project myself out yet. So he died without seeing me again. I think that was the first time I ever cried. I could tell it was affecting Sora, too. When one of us feels a certain way, so does the other. Same heart and all. You know that. But he didn't know why he was so sad. That was when I realized that he needed to know I was there. But that's not the point. The point is, why the sudden…well, I guess 'change of heart' isn't exactly the right phrase, but you get the idea. Why did he decide to help us?"

I think for a moment, then I smile. "It's easy to understand, if you realize one simple thing."

He looks at me, curious. "What's that?"

"That what he did wasn't for Sora. It was for you," I explain.

"That's what I was thinking, but I found it hard to understand," he says. "Do you really think he would do that?"

"Of course. You were his best friend. Maybe even his only friend."

We're both silent for a while. "Wonder what Sora and Kairi are doing?" he asks.

I stand up. "Let's go see."

The two of us leave the room, and walk down the hall and into the living room. Sora and Kairi appear to be playing some sort of car racing game. "I can't believe you're _winning_!" cries Sora. "I thought you told me you were terrible at video games!"

"I am, but I'm a fast learner," Kairi says, grinning. "That, and maybe I'm just better at racing games than I am at fighting games."

"Oh come on! Fast learner? You've gotten better at this in fifteen minutes than I have in two years!" he protests.

"Maybe you're just rusty," she teases. "After all, you went without these games for a year and a half."

She turns around, and sees us. "Looks like we've got company. Did you two have a good talk?"

Roxas walks over and sits on the couch next to Sora. "Sure did. Hey Sora, maybe we can beat her if we work together. Wanna let me help? I used to play these kinds of games with my friends in Twilight Town, and I'm pretty good."

Sora shrugs. "Sure. I'll need all the help I can get to beat this genius."

Roxas nods, then fades back into Sora. I walk over, and lean on the back of the couch. "Two can play at this game," I say. "I don't know a thing about these games, but I'm sure I can learn. You two can just get ready to lose!"

Kairi laughs. "You tell 'em, Nami!"

I smile, and let myself fade back into her. Through her eyes, I watch as she moves her red car in front of Sora's blue one. The two of them seem so happy. They're able to be themselves again, without worrying about anything except what to do the next report on, or which flavor of ice cream to buy. I just hope that this freedom lasts for a while. I mean, it won't last forever, of course. They're sure to have more adventures to go through. But for now, we can just sit back, and enjoy life.


End file.
